


That I Might Reach You (The Restless Dreams Remix)

by J (j_writes)



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-31
Updated: 2011-07-31
Packaged: 2017-10-22 01:24:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_writes/pseuds/J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is what BJ knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That I Might Reach You (The Restless Dreams Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Sound of Silence](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/4026) by Quiesce. 



> written for Remix Redux 2007.

Silence wakes Hawkeye, and Hawkeye wakes BJ.

This is how it is, how it works. This is what BJ knows.

He knows that Hawkeye grew up in a small town, a quiet town, and it took him too long to adjust to the noise and unpredictability of war. Too many sleepless nights in a shaking tent, listening to a world he didn't understand and had never asked to be part of.

He knows that now it's the silence that scares Hawkeye more than anything. It's the silence that wakes him from dreams of home.

He knows what Hawkeye's afraid of.

"You're not dead, Hawk," he says, loud in the night, and he feels Hawkeye's hand still against his chest. _You're not dead. The world hasn't gone on without you. It's still there, and I'm still here._ "Go back to sleep."

He knows that instead of counting sheep, Hawkeye counts nurses, and that when he dreams deeply he makes quiet noises that aren't quite words. He knows that they both sleep better when they're not alone in the bed, and that the first night he woke up to find Hawkeye wrapped around him it took him a long time to realize anything was unusual at all. He's learned exactly how to tell if Hawkeye's going to be grumpy or funny in the morning, or both, just by the way he moves when he gets out of bed.

He knows too much, and not nearly enough.

"But how do you know?" Hawkeye asks him, sounding younger than he ever does during the day. "You could be dead too, Beej. Maybe Charles killed us in our sleep."

BJ turns, eyes still closed, and he smiles.

That's what Hawkeye knows. Woven into the fear and the bitterness and the longing to be anywhere but here. He knows how to make BJ smile, how to make _everyone_ smile. He's learned how to survive in a place like this, where a humorless existence is no existence at all.

And BJ knows that it _comes_ from the fear, from the bitterness, from the longing. And from the anger. The hopeless everyday kind of anger that seeps its way into the fabric of the tents in this place and never goes away. It's another roommate, as tangible and unwelcome as Charles, and much less escapable. It's a part of life here, a part of every second, even when no one is aware of it. BJ hates being angry, he always has. But it's another thing this place has taught him, another lesson he wishes he could unlearn.

He wonders sometimes if this place has changed him, and he wants the answer to be no. But he knows it isn't. Even in the short time he's been here, he's seen people change, and he knows they've seen it in him. It scares him, realizing that the man who leaves this country with his passport may not be the same one who came in with it.

That Hawkeye can make any of them smile in the face of what they see and do on a daily basis is nothing short of a miracle. Or genius. Maybe a little of both.

"If I was dead," BJ says finally, "I wouldn't be trying to sleep in a lumpy cot with a man who had cold toes and was intent on keeping me awake." It comes out a little sharper than he intended, a little less funny. He wants to blame it on the late hour, but the fact is, he's just not as good at it as Hawkeye is. He never will be.

Hawkeye wiggles his feet a little, pulling them just far enough away that BJ can't feel them anymore. He sighs into the pillow. "Ok, c'mere," he says, wrapping a hand around the back of Hawkeye's neck and tugging him down so that his head rests against BJ's chest. Hawkeye moves closer again, seeming to relax against him one muscle at a time until the last of the tension has drained from his body.

They lie like that in silence, curled together in the darkness, and BJ begins to imagine that Hawkeye was right. That the world beyond the tent has faded away, and they are alone. Maybe dead, maybe just sleeping, trapped in a limbo of togetherness and an uncomfortable cot.

Maybe, he thinks, if death were like this…maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

Hawkeye shifts against him, breath warming BJ's chest. "I'm going back to sleep," BJ tells him, forming the words slowly, carefully, to make sure that his drowsy brain puts them together in the right order. "If it gets too quiet, you should be able to hear my heart beat." He lets his hand rest on Hawkeye's hair for a moment, smoothing it, then moves it away again.

There are lines, things this is about and things it isn't, and they're always moving. He's never quite sure where they are, so he leaves it up to Hawkeye to test them.

He touches Hawkeye's shoulder instead, feels the way his body moves as he breathes, slow and even, willing himself back into sleep. This is another thing that BJ knows. The process. Hawkeye is always the first one asleep at night, nearly as soon as his head hits the pillow. It's an adaptation that comes from erratic sleep patterns, never knowing when the next hour of rest will come.

But when he's woken in the night, it's different, it's harder, and it's only when he stops forcing it, stops thinking about it, that he'll finally drift off again.

BJ feels the moment when it changes, when Hawkeye's mind stops panicking, stops trying to think, and just drifts. He can feel the difference in the way he breathes, the weight of his body against BJ's side. His mind has moved on to other things, letting him rest, moving slowly into dreams.

Eventually, Hawkeye falls asleep to the sound of BJ's heart beating.

BJ lies awake, listening to the silence.


End file.
